


Hugs for an Edgelord

by ConstantlyTiredReader



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Spicyhoney - Freeform, Touch-Starved, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Papyrus/Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29525043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantlyTiredReader/pseuds/ConstantlyTiredReader
Summary: Stretch is trying to mind his own business when Edge barges in, demanding a hug of all things. It's not like they like each other, so what kind of weird joke is this?Except... it's not a joke, and Edgereallyneeds a hug.
Relationships: Papyrus/Papyrus (Undertale), Spicyhoney
Comments: 34
Kudos: 90





	Hugs for an Edgelord

**Author's Note:**

> I was responding to some lovely comments the other day when the words "Edge demanding a hug" popped into my brain and refused to leave, so here we are! A special shout-out to all the lovelies who helped me come up with ideas for this quick little story beyond the general concept of Edge simply demanding a hug from Stretch.

“You!”

Startled, Stretch fumbles his phone, dropping it onto his side table, where it bounces and falls onto the carpet. Damn it. Hopefully, it won’t break. _Again_. So far this whole ‘having an actual bed frame for his mattress’ thing has been more trouble than it's worth; he’ll have to tell Blue that they need to put up a listing on the undernet again. Looking up, he decides to glare at whoever slammed his bedroom door open to start yelling at him. Uninvited. On Stretch’s day off of all days, where he has been up to nothing more complicated than squatting on his bed while messing around on his phone. You know, making it even _more_ of an asshole move than it already was.

… 

Of course. 

“what the fuck are you doing in here?” he sighs. Realising who it is only increases his irritation while simultaneously leaving him exhausted for what’s yet to come. Is it too much to ask the universe for just one quiet day to relax?

Based on the way that those absurdly high heeled boots stomp closer to him, the answer to that question is yes, regrettably.

Edge looks real damned pissed. He always does, though. Stretch has never seen his asshole of an alternate with any expression more cheerful than an enraged scowl. Chances are, his skull isn’t physically able to make anything resembling a smile. Hell, maybe that’s how the jerk earned that gnarly crack through his eye socket. Arms crossed, his gaze scans assessingly over Stretch’s comfortably untidy room. His sneer grows.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Stretch groans. Fuck, he really didn’t sign up for whatever this nonsense is gonna be. “you gonna answer my question or what?”

“Ashtray,” Edge says, putting an almost impressive amount of imperious scorn into the nickname. “I demand…” he pauses, as though for dramatic effect, “that you give me a hug.”

Brow furrowing enough to make his forehead sore, Stretch struggles to figure out what, exactly, he misheard in that sentence. Edge, wanting a hug from _him_?! There’s no way! But he also can’t process it to be anything else. As tempting as it is to flop back against his mattress and yell at the ceiling, Stretch forces himself to look Edge in the eye sockets; he needs all the hints that he can get. “what the hell are you talking about?”

“Did I fucking stutter?” He throws his arms up in frustration. “I demand that you give me a hug.”

Okay, yeah, that’s not making this mess any clearer. Resting his chin in folded hands, Stretch asks, “why, though?”

Ooh, he must’ve struck a nerve there. Not that he understands why. All Stretch knows is that Edge bristles at that comment, looking a great deal like his furry hellspawn of a cat minus the fur. “That’s not important,” he sniffs huffily. “Now are you going to give me the damn hug or —”

“or what?” Stretch says, unable to stifle a laugh. “you’re gonna steal one from me?” 

Oh, he can’t believe this! This is too good! Who would ever believe that the edgelord would start resorting to threats to get a hug from someone he hates? He can’t wait to tell Red, he would get a kick out of —

Like accidentally shortcutting into a tree in Snowdin forest, the humour is punched out of Stretch when the guarded expression on Edge’s face finally clicks, leaving nothing but icy regrets behind. His stance is more tense than normal, far beyond his normal rigid posture. Stretch isn’t sure if he’s imagining the sound of the guy’s leather gloves creaking but he wouldn’t be shocked if they were based on how tightly his fists are clenched.

 _Shit_.

“Never mind, ashtray,” he says tonelessly. Probably trying to hide the fact that Stretch’s assholery actually got to him. “It was just a jape. Yes. A jape. I wanted to see if you were foolish enough to believe that I, the Great and Terrible Papyrus, would ever need — _want_ ,” he corrects hastily, “a hug from someone like you.” 

With that, Edge turns promptly on his heel, already hightailing it out.

Yeah, Stretch can’t let that happen. Thankfully, it isn’t hard to catch the edgelord; all it takes is one quick shortcut to barricade his bedroom door. Carefully — because this seems like a good way to lose a hand — he grabs him by the arm and pulls him in.

Edge jerks at his grasp, but Stretch doesn’t let go. He knows the edgelord could break free if he really wanted to. “What the fuck do you think you’re —”

“hey, it’s cool.” Taking a deep look into those crimson eye lights, Stretch decides to go for it. “everybody needs a hug sometimes, edgelord.”

* * *

Edge… he doesn’t know what to do.

He knows why he came here. He was on a mission, and this at the time seemed like the best procedure for succeeding. 

Although, the fact that he is calling this a mission probably says an unfortunate amount about him as a person.

It really shouldn’t be a big deal. It isn’t. It’s just that, well, he’s never had a real hug before. Or any hug. The closest would have been when he was a babybones, back in the days when his older brother would call him Paps instead of Boss, and even then, Edge doesn’t know if he can count that. Curling up with Red when they were children to share each other’s body heat through the night isn’t exactly the same thing. And, as he has never experienced one, he had to find the right person to get it over with.

Naturally, Edge wouldn’t have any luck in Underfell. Red, who he trusts his very life with, wouldn’t work. He would be far too weird about it. Yes, his older brother would do anything for him — well, except for picking up that damn sock of his — but that doesn’t mean that he would skip out on copious amounts of mockery for decades to come. Plus, Red can be… iffy about touch. He wouldn’t want to make his brother uncomfortable for something as trivial as a hug. And that’s getting nowhere near the idea of asking Undyne about it. He would be lucky if she didn’t break his ribs for ‘being a nerd about it’. That would leave Edge with the choice of hiring a whore to give him a damn hug, which would only add a new level of avoidable strangeness to the situation. 

The point is, Underfell monsters simply don’t do this type of thing.

Thankfully, these days Edge isn’t limited to his own Underground. With his brother’s machine up and running he has more options, even if they remain to be less than ideal. Oh, he’s quite sure that Papyrus or Blue would be more than willing to help him out… but they would probably get overly emotional about it and tip the scale into a different kind of weirdness. There’s Sans, but Edge has always found him to be too much like Red. There would be the same discomfort, with an added touch of tale-verse pity should he ever figure out why.

And that left Stretch by default, like it or not.

So, Edge had swallowed his pride and set in the coordinates for Underswap. Besides, he told himself on his way over, it’s not like the ashtray doesn’t mock him for plenty of things already. One more bit of ammo (hopefully) wouldn't make too much of a difference.

He still doesn’t know what prompted him to go to Stretch today. Angel knows he has been thinking about this for a while. Curiosity, perhaps? Edge has to admit, watching the other sets of brothers and their overly-affectionate nonsense always gives him a weird ache in his soul. Not that he feels like Red is shorting him in any way; it simply isn’t how they operate. But over time, that ache must have been building to something stronger, because already he can’t help but feel oddly relieved, like feeding a man whose starvation had slipped past his attention.

And now? Now he doesn’t have a clue what to do next. 

Partially, this is because he’s never hugged or been hugged before. It’s like trying to speak a foreign language based on hearing random phrases without knowing their meanings. But mostly? Edge wasn’t expecting to actually make it this far.

“edge?” Stretch asks, practically whispering into his acoustic meatus. He sounds vaguely perplexed, and understandably so. Fuck knows that Edge is.

All he can do is stand with his arms pressed against his sides, staring into the Underswap brothers’ upstairs hallway. Stretch has his arms around him. Tight, but not uncomfortably so. Nothing strangling. Edge can still breathe easily. The best comparison he can think of, strangely enough, is the first time he tried on the leather pants he found at the dump. It’s a confining sensation without being constricting, warm and pleasant and all-encompassing. Almost like wrapping his scarf snugly around his face and neck, protecting him from the bitter Snowdin cold. It’s softer than he was expecting, especially since both he and Stretch are skeletons. 

Suddenly, Stretch squeezes a little tighter. “edgelord? you with me?”

“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses in a single whispered breath. 

He can feel it when Stretch huffs out a silent laugh, his ribcage sharply expanding against his own. “well, a good first step would be to put your arms around me. it takes two to tango, you know. unless you’re needing lessons on that too.”

It turns out that people can indeed be complete asses while giving hugs. Good to know. Still, Edge does what he is told. 

“you can go tighter than that, you know. can barely feel you.”

“I wouldn’t want to break you,” Edge counters, managing some snark back at him. It brings a sense of normalcy that helps him relax into the touch a bit more. Trusting that the ashtray would complain if he hugs him too harshly, he puts more pressure into his hug.

“there we go,” Stretch murmurs after a minute or two. “that’s the good stuff, edgelord.”

For once, Edge agrees with him.

Already, this exceeds his expectations by a mile. He doesn’t have the words to describe what he feels, the mental and physical quiet of it all. It reminds him of healing magic. Precious green soaking into his bones, all the way to his very soul. There’s the same feeling of sated heaviness as Stretch hugs him, making him feel whole again. Almost like the first full meal Red was able to get them when they moved to Snowdin, hot and filling and distracting away from all of his problems.

It's wonderful.

Cautiously, he rests his forehead on Stretch’s shoulder. He can recall seeing actors do that in movies he watched during their multiversal get-togethers. Stretch doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t pull away, or squirm impatiently. He just… lets it happen.

And stars above, it happens for a long time. Edge still feels a bit lost on the whole hug etiquette, but it feels like it’s probably longer than a hug should normally last. But who knows? Certainly not him. And, relying heavily on this plausible deniability, Edge keeps the hug going. It’s… the best he’s felt in forever.

Stars, he doesn’t want to let go.

* * *

Helplessly, Stretch grins at the monster who is finally reciprocating his hug.

Something’s obviously up with the edgelord. Even if he hadn’t clued in with the whole hug demand thing, it’s beyond obvious now. Over the past few minutes, Edge’s hold has tightened from being so hesitant that it could barely be considered one to now, where Stretch has a feeling that his ribs are gonna ache when they’re done. 

He doesn’t mind, though. It isn’t his first rodeo with this kind of hug, where you can feel the desperation in it. When Blue was a kiddo and his nightmares were really bad, Stretch would frequently be woken up to this kind of tight hug. Over time, shit’s happened, and so did more hugs. These days, Stretch tends to be the one doing the rib-crushing after a nightmare of his own, but it’s cool. Sometimes, a guy’s just gotta squeeze out all the bad emotions.

Clearly, the edgelord’s got a whole bunch of bad emotions he needs to hug out.

Softly, Stretch begins to hum one of Napstaton’s newest hits. It’s not the same as the lullabies he sometimes sings for his bro, but it’s better for the moment; he doesn’t want to ruin things if Edge recognised the songs and thought he was being patronising or some shit. Almost immediately, Edge relaxes some more.

Good.

With everything calming down, Stretch allows himself to zone out a bit. Just a smidge. Giving a good hug doesn’t tend to require too much mental bandwidth, after all. Just some good ol’ soothing intent as he holds someone close. Even when that someone is the edgelord, who would probably stab him if he were to get remotely close to his personal bubble at any other time.

But the guy clearly needs this. Stretch would like to think he’s not that much of an asshole, that he would deliberately leave his prickly alternate wanting for something like this.

Stretch has no warning when Edge’s knees give out, pulling them both down to the ground. 

“ _fuck!_ ” he gasps. Barely, Stretch manages to catch them — one definite advantage of having his arms wrapped around the edgelord — softening their fall a bit. Not that he would need to hold him much to do so; Edge is clinging to him almost desperately. There’s a muffled rattling of his bones shaking underneath his clothes.

Gulping at that realisation, Stretch works on nudging them into what should be a more pleasant sitting position. It’s a slow process; each time he shifts, Edge’s shaking gets worse. His hold gets even tighter, which is impressive considering that the fall already brought them to the boa constrictor stage. “shhhhhh, it’s gonna be okay,” Stretch finds himself reassuring automatically, rubbing the edgelord’s back, “everything’s gonna be okay.”

Edge doesn’t say anything in response. Frankly, Stretch wasn’t expecting him to. He also wasn’t expecting to feel a wet spot on the shoulder Edge has been resting his head against, though. 

Somehow, crying was pretty far down on the list of things to anticipate from the edgelord.

Stretch takes a deep breath. It’s fine. He can deal with some tears, no problem. It’s fine. “it’s gonna be okay, edgelord.” He moves his hand up to cradle Edge’s skull, running soft circles around his coronal suture. Not quite scritching and not quite massaging. Personally, Stretch finds this kind of thing to be relaxing, so he can only hope that Edge does too. The edgelord hiccups, his fingers tangling into Stretch’s hoodie behind his back. 

So he keeps going, rocking them in a soothing motion. Murmuring reassurances under his breath, soft words of nonsense mostly. Stretch has no clue how long they stay there like that, only that his tibias are growing tired of staying on the floor like this. 

Eventually, Edge lifts his head. His face is wet, covered in a combination of tears and snot. Poor guy, clean freak that he is, would probably kill for a kleenex. Luckily for him, Stretch just so happens to have a tissue box that’s chilling within reach. The advantages of having his room organised into the disaster that he understands. Edge accepts one to clean his face.

Setting aside his used kleenex, Edge clears his throat. “Sorry,” he says, his voice bearing a deliberate steadiness.

“it’s all cool. in this house, hug time is a judgement-free zone.”

“I can’t decide if, coming from you, that means a lot or nothing at all.”

This manages to surprise Stretch into a quiet laugh. “i mean, you got me there. but seriously, dude. everything’s chill here.”

Edge nods, and they make eye contact. Which is… interesting. Yeah, that’s one way to put it. Edge’s eyes are still teary and a little too wide, such a contrast to his normal self. Stretch has no clue what vibes he’s personally giving off. 

They don’t say anything. What can they say? This is such a departure from their normal snipe-fests, and it would feel wrong to go right back to poking at the edgelord after all this. 

And then, the spell is broken as Edge surges forward, pressing their teeth together.

For a solid moment, Stretch can’t react. There is no way to compute this kind of thing happening out of nowhere. As soon as his mind catches up to what’s going on, it isn’t bad. As kisses go — especially surprise ones — it’s actually pretty damn decent. 

But…

“what the fuck?!” Stretch breathes, noping out of that at almost the exact same time as Edge. They’re still half-holding each other in a step away from a hug.

“I… fuck.”

More silence. This time, though, the awkwardness reeks like a bagged lunch that has been trapped in a locker to mould for three solid months. Stretch can taste it — or is that just the spice of Edge’s magic lingering against his mouth?

“uh…” Stretch starts slowly, “just a head’s up, kissing isn’t necessarily a normal part of the whole hug procedure thing. just so you know.” Because if the edgelord has gotten that impression from something, things could be weird in his future. Like, really weird. 

Curtly, Edge says, “I’m aware.” He then stands up; Stretch lets go of him, not wanting to make him feel trapped. Fuck knows the only reason he was still touching him after all that was because he was too thrown off to even consider it. “I’m sorry. For all of this. I won’t bother you anymore.” 

And yeah, no. Stretch may be fine to have his quiet time back, but not at the cost of making Edge walk of shame out from what was supposed to be a simple moment of comfort. Mentally, he prepares himself to shortcut after him again. Jumping up to his feet with a wobble, he tugs at the edgelord’s sleeve, grateful that he’s wearing a bright red button-up instead of his normal cropped tank top for once. This is enough to make him freeze midstep.

“hey. why don’t we, uh, sit down and talk for a bit.” He gestures at his bed.

Edge’s mouth opens and shuts, as though he’s cycling through things to argue. He settles on something, nodding. “Fine.”

“cool cool,” Stretch says, letting go of the sleeve. 

Somewhat reluctantly, Edge follows him. In any other circumstance, Stretch would probably get a good laugh out of the way he practically hovers on the edge of the mattress, grimacing like he’s being asked to roll around in a steaming pile of shit. But today, Stretch has to put on his big boy pants and try not to be a jerk around the guy who came crawling from murder world to get a single hug.

As soon as Edge looks comfortable — or at least, as comfortable as Stretch thinks he can get, given the circumstances — he lays his hands out on his knees. “just so you know, i’m not upset about that.” Stretch risks a direct look at the edgelord and exhales in relief when he sees the tiniest hint of a nod. Good. “it’s just that now really doesn’t seem like the right time. later, maybe…” 

Trailing off, Stretch resists the urge to smack himself on the forehead; he really needs to stop opening his mouth when he has no clue where he’s going. Did he almost just offer to let Edge kiss him in the future?! Why would he go and put that idea into either of their heads?

Just when Stretch didn’t think he could take things to a new level of weirdness, Edge nods, blushing brighter than a stoplight. Stars! Does that mean…? Who knows.

Clearing his throat, Stretch stares at the ceiling for a minute before looking back at Edge. He could use a good reboot to get him ready for this next part. “anyways, you wanna talk? about what’s bugging you?” he clarifies.

“Am I that obvi—” Edge cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Of course, _Judge_. No, it’s fine.”

Stretch doesn’t believe that, not for one second. But, he’s not gonna push it. The edgelord’s been pretty damn open already, all things considered. “‘kay. if you say so.”

“I do.” 

“well, just know that if you ever need anyone to talk to, or a hug or something, i’m here. and the others, too,” he adds in a hurry. “no strings attached, and no bitching.”

Edge raises a brow, suddenly looking a lot more like his normal assholish self. “ _No_ bitching?”

Smiling, Stretch taps his chin with his finger in an overexaggerated gesture of pensiveness. “well, minimal bitching. we wouldn’t want to bring on the apocalypse, after all.” Strangely, Stretch’s soul warms when Edge smirks at that comment. Huh. “but there’ll never be any extra bitching about hugs. all you gotta do is say the word and bam!” He snaps to accentuate it. “hug time will start.”

“Understood.” Edge looks off to the side, avoiding eye contact. “And if I were to want another hug soon after?”

“same deal; just say the word and we can make it work.”

“Then… I think I would like another hug.”

Smile growing larger, Stretch nods. “can do, edgelord.” 

He raises his arms, opening them wide. Without hesitation this time, Edge surges forward, enveloping himself in the embrace. It’s tight and warm and the slightest bit frantic, but Stretch doesn’t mind. 

_Take what you need, edgelord. I’m here for you._


End file.
